Kronos, p.4
Kronos, page 4
Isabella don’t know where to put herself. I can see the awkwardness in her as she wrings her hands and looks from Pa to me and then to the open door through which Ann has just left. I realise then that half her bloody problem is that she thinks she has to replace Ma, to become the bridge between us all. That’s what puts her in such a righteous mood half the time. I shouldn’t be angered by it. And right then I’m not.
‘Come here, sister,’ I say, holding my arms wide. She comes to me. I hold her for a moment, before letting her go so that she can see to Pa.
I make my way outside to sit and wait for Ann to come back.
Nine
Carla Listens to the Night
AND, OF COURSE, there’s nowhere for Carla to sleep, is there? Oh no. And far be it from me to complain, because a vampire hunter needs his sleep and I should just be grateful they rescued me when they did. Vampire hunter. Oh dear. Carla, my girl, you have once again found yourself in the company of some very mad gentlemen. My mother always used to say: ‘Carla, I don’t know how you do it but if there’s a wet brain hereabouts you’ll find it. Moreover, you’ll probably ask for my permission to marry it.’ Not that I need her permission any more, of course. Nor do I want to marry them. Either of them. Even if one of them has got lovely hair and looks like he could wrestle a horse to death.
No.
Too mad.
Apparently they’ve been doing this for years, travelling up and down the country killing ‘creatures of sin’ wherever they find them. I’m lucky he didn’t chop my head off when he had the opportunity, I suppose.
On the back of the coach are several large cases of equipment. They say that you can never tell what will kill a vampire, so you bring as many possible weapons as you can and hope for the best. There are crossbows, swords, enough crucifixes to make a priest weep with joy and several bottles of water that Grost tells me have been blessed. I suspect this is enough to have both of them hanged under the laws of the Lord Protector.
‘We have worse worms than Cromwell to fear,’ says Grost. Kronos just smiles. He is not one for talking. For a while I wonder if this is because he doesn’t speak good English. His accent is clearly foreign. (I’ve lived in a village all my life and the strangest thing I ever saw was a dog with three legs – don’t ask me what sort of accent Kronos’s is, all I can tell you is that it’s ‘foreign’.) As we ate our meal, though, I decided he could speak English perfectly well – he just didn’t have anything he wanted to say. That’s all right: I like a silent man. Tom used to talk too much and men do get ever so upset when you stop listening. Better for all if they say very little to begin with.
After eating some of Grost’s stew (which smells like my hair but tastes a lot better), I walk to a nearby stream where I can wash away the remaining traces of my elders’ disapproval. The water is cold and it makes my head ache, though not as much as the stocks did so I guess it’s an improvement.
Back at the camp, Kronos is sitting on his own. His manner makes it perfectly clear he would like it to stay that way.
‘Your friend is not good company,’ I say to Grost.
‘Luckily for you,’ he says, ‘I am!’
And this is true: he tells stories of their adventures together and, whether I believe them or not, they’re exciting and funny. By the time we go to sleep I’m almost relaxed. Then I find out that I have nothing to sleep on but the earth and my mood sours. And from there on the night just gets worse.
Grost snores. He snores so loudly that he must terrify the wildlife. Certainly they can no more sleep than I can. They make that quite plain. At some volume.
It’s not good to lie awake in the middle of nowhere with two lunatics close by. Try as you might to keep it at bay, it’s not long before panic sets in. Anyone who has ever spent any time miles away from anywhere will probably know this but I hadn’t thought about it before: where people aren’t, animals are. There is nothing peaceful about a night away from civilisation. It barks, hoots, growls, buzzes and whines.
As if that weren’t enough I begin to really think about my companions – the foreigner and the hunch back. Did I really expect to last more than a couple of days in their company? How stupid had I been to leave my home behind on a whim?
Growing up it hadn’t been so bad. My mother had been the perfect cushion between the self-important attitudes of others and the playfulness of a child. But after Hopkins and Stearne …
Now is not the time to think of that. I have enough trouble sleeping without conjuring up images of those old bastards.
Too late. I am now well and truly awake, angry and afraid, and determined not to suffer another minute of it.
I get to my feet and decide to head for the stream. The moon is full and I can see well enough. I get to the water and decide to turn right for no other reason than it being far too late to start planning ahead now. I figure that I’ll walk a little way and end up finding some other people. Follow a stream or a river for long enough and you can’t help but stumble on someone or other. I hope they’re not mad next time.
Something screeches directly above me and I yell. I cannot tell you how much that annoys me. I am not a foolish girl who screams at the first sign of something alarming. Still, it startled me and you can’t always help these things.
I look up but of course can’t see anything. Bright as it is it’s still not light enough to see far.
I decide it’s just another of the stupid noisy creatures that have made it their mission to annoy me.
It screeches again but this time I feel something yank at my hair and I could swear it’s a pair of fingers, reaching down from a branch to snatch at me as I pass. I turn and shout, determined to show whoever it is that they’ll have a fight on their hands. I stand still for a moment, looking up into the branches above me. There’s nothing there.
This is getting more than annoying.
I carry on walking and, with the predictability of every campfire tale that has ever been told, the noise returns as something moves through the air above me. I try not to picture what it might be, try not to imagine a creature with impossibly long arms and legs, dragging its way through the branches in pursuit of its night’s meal. I try not to do that.
There is a high-pitched squeal and I begin to run, careless of whether I crash into a tree or not. Better that than just to stand still, getting more and more afraid.
There is a whipping sound – something passing through the air behind me – and then that scream again. I turn to look and see a dark shape fall to the ground.
‘Best not to wander off,’ says Kronos, standing some distance away, a crossbow in his hand. ‘There’s worse out here than bats.’
‘Bats?’ I look at the dead shape that he has shot out of the air. It is indeed a bat, a particularly large one. ‘That’s not a—’
‘It’s a bat,’ he says. ‘A species of flying rat that sometimes likes to drink the blood of passing simpletons. Now come back to camp and go to sleep.’
Kronos walks off.
I am furious enough at his arrogance that I nearly continue in the opposite direction. Common sense gets the better of anger, though, and, after giving the dead bat an unfriendly kick, I follow the vampire hunter at a distance.
Ten
Barton Sorrell Hits the Bottom
WHEN ANN DOESN’T return, Pa and Isabella head out into the forest to find her. They both walk the paths in widening circles, getting more and more desperate when she isn’t found.
‘Stupid,’ Isabella says. ‘Shouldn’t have let her just wander off like that.’
‘She knows these woods like the back of her hand,’ I say. ‘She’ll be fine.’ I’m lying to both of us, and I don’t think she believes me any more than I do.
Ann was clearly not herself when she went running off. Who knows what might have happened to her? If she stumbled on the place where Petra died might she not have lost her mind? Run screaming into the trees only to get utterly lost? Isabella is right: I should have stopped her somehow. We all should have.
‘I can’t believe I’ve lost her too,’ says Pa. He’s been wandering around in a daze all day. He’s not been right since Ma died but this is much worse than normal, like he’s as lost inside his own head as poor Ann is out in those trees.
I often worry about what is to happen with my father. He gets weaker with every passing month, as if he’s slowly given up on everything he used to fight for. I can understand that he misses Ma, we all do, but in the end you have to look to those who are still alive, not just those who aren’t.
It’s early afternoon by the time Ann reappears. We’re all gathered on the front porch, trying to decide what to do for the best, when Isabella catches sight of her at the forest edge.
‘There she is!’ Isabella cries. She jumps off the porch and runs towards her sister.
Pa just stares, sitting in his rocking chair, not quite believing his eyes, having convinced himself that Ann was gone for good. ‘Ann?’ he asks, in a quavering confused voice.
The sun’s in our eyes and we can’t see well. Ann is in silhouette as she walks towards us. Still, there is something strange in the way she moves. She is walking like me. Like someone who has fallen.
Isabella suddenly stops, letting out a brief cry.
‘Oh God,’ she says. ‘Ann?’
I grab my sticks and move as fast as I can, dragging myself over the sun-baked earth and through the long yellow grass. I have to see, I have to help …
I lose my balance, trying to move too fast, and fall to the ground, one of my sticks snapping as I throw my weight on it wrong. I can’t stop, won’t stop, pulling myself along the ground.
‘Ann!’ I shout, as if I can knock the horror away through the sound of her name. ‘Ann!’
She’s still in silhouette as I look up but she falls forward. Isabella tries to hold onto her but only manages to join us on the floor.
‘Ann?’ We’re face to face, almost touching, but this isn’t Ann. This is an old woman, older than any I have ever seen.
She opens her mouth to speak and her breath is sweetly rotten, like fruit left out to turn.
She reaches for me and that silver bracelet, which has now hung on the lifeless arms of two dead Sorrells, catches the sun so well that it burns my eyes.
‘Ann!’ I scream.
Eleven
Brothers in Blood – The Memoirs of Professor Herbert Grost: Volume One (Unpublished)
AS ALWAYS, I woke that morning fresh and full of vigour. What is the point of sleep, after all? It is just another one of those luxuries that illustrious professors and their vampire-slaughtering companions indulge in for no longer than necessary. Foolish sleep! Pernicious relaxation! Begone! Also, as deliriously comfortable as the ground is, a man can have too much of a good thing. The sooner he can get to his feet and rearrange what passes for his spine the better. Then there is the traveller’s friend, bosom companion of all gentlemen of the road: breakfast.
Our new companion had clearly not slept well. When I woke her she had all the charm and sweetness of an ox in high summer. I left her to her unladylike language and threats of violence while I woke Kronos. He was not much better.
I tried to make cheerful conversation over the bread and ale but it was clearly beyond my companions and we returned to the road in a mood best described as ‘surly’.
As the morning progressed, Carla thawed somewhat, asking me again about our exploits. This was perfectly normal, of course. It is easy to forget – steeped in this bizarre business as we are – that there are those who don’t even believe in vampires. To Carla, announcing our vocation was as absurd as saying we were dragon slayers (though I’ve met one of those and I must say he seemed remarkably lucid). She would believe soon enough, I decided, if she were to keep us company in the days ahead.
I told her of our recent adventures with Madame Loubrette and of the business in the capital that I have referred to previously as the ‘Affair of the Clerkenwell Count’. I mentioned our months overseas, following the trail of Dracula himself and his nest-partner Baron Vorshatis. They are marvellous adventures, thrilling to listen to. It certainly must be more fun hearing them than it was living them.
By the middle of the afternoon Padbury Forest was visible in the distance and Carla was more relaxed. I wasn’t sure whether she believed a word I’d told her, but she had entered into the spirit of my stories and had enjoyed them for what they were.
In his letter, Marcus had said that the large expanse of trees was the hub of the local community, ringed by dwellings with a large enough gathering to the south for it to have earned itself the name Padbury Village. To the north was the large hall owned by the Durwards. It was Kronos who reminded me why the name was familiar.
Hagen Durward had been a commander in the New Model Army, famed not only for his tactical strengths but also his abilities as a fighter. The two are surprisingly rare to find in one man. A fine swordsman, he was feared and respected by his men in equal measure and he had led several particularly brutal campaigns in Ireland. It had been said that he was a man who would not brook criticism: the slightest difference of opinion was resolved by the sword. If you disagreed with him, Durward declared, then you would fight him and the victor’s opinion would be the one that was upheld. So fierce was his reputation, so bloody and long the list of those he had slain in combat, that few chose to disagree with him about anything.
Once the fighting in Ireland was over, he resigned his commission to accept a peerage, settling here as Lord Durward to savour his memories of bloodstained steel. Such relaxation was to be short-lived: he contracted the plague two years later and died a typically agonising death. There were those who had served under him that still found themselves smiling to think of it today. He was not a man much loved.
We entered Padbury itself and Carla found the occasional confused stare more than she was comfortable with.
‘Such is the way in parochial places like this,’ I assured her. ‘Drive a nice-looking coach through them and they think you’re here to eat their children.’
‘Oh,’ she replied, ‘I know what these places can be like. My village was no better. It’s just the first time I’ve been on the other end of it.’
I shrugged. ‘When you look like me you get used to impolite scrutiny. Let them talk – if that’s all they have to entertain themselves with then life’s a pretty miserable thing for them.’
The village was so small that it took us no time at all to be out the other side and skirting the edge of the forest.
‘It’s dark,’ said Carla, peering between the trunks of the trees. ‘I’m not surprised there’s a monster in there.’ She turned back and gave me a smile. It was a smile that suggested we both knew she was being silly. I didn’t look forward to the time when she would be proven wrong.
We arrived at Marcus’s house shortly after. It was a good size and I reflected that his medical practice must be relatively successful for him to be able to afford such a dwelling. Closer scrutiny showed that the living accom modation itself was remarkably small, the rest of the plot being taken up by outbuildings that presumably he rarely used. Perfect for us: we had plenty of space to store our tools away from the prying eyes of the locals, one of whom, a red-faced gentleman brandishing an axe, was there to greet us as we arrived.
For an awkward moment I assumed he must be Dr Marcus himself. But Kronos emerged from the coach and, ignoring the fellow, began to shout for his friend.
I gave the man a smile – I find this is good manners when someone is carrying heavy tools – though it wasn’t returned.
Eventually, Marcus himself appeared. He looked far less intimidating than the red-faced fellow. Perhaps a little older than Kronos, he had a gentle, slightly studious-looking face and a mop of black hair that age had streaked white at the temples.
‘He seems pleased to see us,’ said Carla as she watched Kronos and Marcus laughing and patting each other on the back.
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Unusual that, to be honest. Shall we unpack?’
Twelve
What the Beer Brought Out of Clyde Lorrimer
NOW I’M NOT saying nothing. You know me, Clyde Lorrimer is a man to let matters be, he don’t like sticking his nose into other people’s business … If there’s another word out of you, Bob Frimpton, I’ll stove your head in with this here stool and to hell with the story … Well, mind you do … Mouth like a gaping arsehole when the plague’s in town and just as likely to dump something of worth on us. As I say – and bloody well stand by, thank you very much – I am not a one for gossip.
But just you wait until I tell you what I saw roll up to Dr Marcus’s place this evening.
I know there’s some round these ways who don’t hold much weight by the doctor’s physick but I always say he did all right by my Mary so these newfangled leeches and powders is fine by me. Still, he knows some funny buggers, that’s for sure and I wouldn’t argue with anyone as says so.
I’m sorting out the wood for him, just finishing up as it’s getting on and he don’t pay me so well as I’m going to hang around all day. I’ve got a proper sweat on and I’m looking forward to knocking it on the head with a quick drink – you know how it is.
All of a sudden there’s this huge coach pulls in. Fancy-looking thing it is, windows all blacked out so as you can’t catch a glimpse of who’s on the inside. For a minute I’m thinking the Durwards have got themselves a new coach, then I figure that it isn’t young Morris driving so it can’t be. Sat there in the driver’s seat is a hunchback and a girl. Yes, Frimpton, a hunchback … what about it?
Well, how do I know?
Of course he fit up there because I saw him, but he was a hunchback nonetheless …
What? Well, he bloody leaned forward, didn’t he? I swear … one more word out of him and that’s that, I’m not telling you all this for my own benefit am I?
