He knocked on the door, and waited for what seemed an eternity as human footfalls made their way across plush carpet. The door opened to reveal Reggie, his necktie hung loosely around the neck of his white dress shirt and a glass of whisky sat in his free hand.
With a brittle grin, he said, “Dutch courage. Cheers.” He tossed down the remaining amber liquid and stepped back to allow Connor to enter. One deep inhalation reassured Connor that the alcohol levels in Reggie’s body were minimal. He had consumed only one drink.
He walked past Reggie and stopped dead. Lavinia rose from her seat on a caramel and gold brocade couch. She smiled, and the act of smoothing creases from the jade colored silk skirt of her dress turned into convulsive plucking at the fabric.
Connor crossed the room, captured her hand and raised it to his chest. “I’m sorry.”
Tears welled in the deep brown pools of her eyes and ran slowly down her cheeks. “I thought you were dead.”
“I’m so sorry.” He kissed her hand, and held it until the tremble shuddering through her body eased. With a sad smile, he said, “Please forgive me. I tried not to hurt you.”
“You didn’t kill Matthew Rice, or Ivy, or Rufus. I know you didn’t.”
Connor felt the tension in his shoulders dissolve. He had a tale of madness to relate, but at least Lavinia didn’t believe he could murder. He hadn’t realized how much that meant to him, until now.
Lowering himself carefully onto the couch, Connor drew Lavinia down beside him. Reggie, as if he knew this was the ‘and now I’ll begin moment’, settled into the armchair opposite.
“This will sound insane. I know that, but hear me out. Three nights ago, I had an encounter-” Connor grimaced. There is no point dancing around the truth. “I was attacked in the morgue and I died.”
Lavinia’s mouth fell open, and Reggie snorted with laughter.
“I know. I have been through hell trying to get my head around this, but it’s true. Watch.” Connor deliberately breathed out, clamped his mouth shut, and sank into eerie stillness. He did not even blink.
The seconds ticked away and Reggie’s gaze shuffled from Connor to Lavinia and back again.
Connor realized it would take more, so he got up from the couch and went into the bedroom. He heard the gasps when, to Lavinia and Reggie, he simply vanished. He walked human slow back into the room, holding a decorative quartz paperweight. When he had the attention of both humans, and they jumped to their feet, he slowly crumbled the ball of stone into a handful of dust.
Reggie took Lavinia’s hand and pulled her behind his back. “Stay away, Connor.”
Wriggling her fingers from his grasp, Lavinia pushed past Reggie and moved closer to Connor. “No, Reggie. It’s okay.”
The ocean of despair Connor felt inside was reflected back in her gaze.
“He won’t hurt us.” Shooting a pleading look over her shoulder, she said, “He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t care about us.”
“Lavinia is right, Reggie. I would never harm you.” Connor tried hard to keep eye contact, trying not to think about the dying man he drank from, and the thief he killed. He had not planned it, but the man died anyway.
Connor sat down on the couch once again and stared at his polished shoes. He waited for Reggie to decide what he wanted to do.
Both Reggie and Lavinia returned to their seats. Lavinia took Connor’s hand, turned it over, and inspected the smooth hard white flesh. Without saying a word, she reached out and pressed her palm to his silent chest.
Connor expected questions, but he got acceptance as she whispered, “Who is killing people? Ivy? Rufus? Who wants to ruin your life?”
“I don’t know, not for sure, but Reggie talked to Lester, and I think it’s Malachi.”
“Who the hell are you talking about, Connor?” Reggie leaned forward and braced his arms on his knees.
“He is the one who ‘killed’ me. I know it sounds crazy, but he’s thousands of years old, and looks like a skull covered in dried out skin.” Connor looked at Reggie. “Does that sound familiar?”
He nodded.
“What?” Lavinia looked from one man to the other, frustrated at being kept in the dark. “What? Tell me.”
“Lester saw Rufus die. He told Reggie the killer looks like that. Skeleton covered in skin. Who drank Rufus’ blood.”
Lavinia sagged backward on the couch. “And he could come after us?”
Connor said slowly, “Malachi has disappeared. He may have gone. He has caused a lot of trouble and left me facing charges as a serial killer. Perhaps that is how he passes the decades. I don’t know. But until I can be sure, I don’t want either of you to leave London.” Connor rubbed his temples, feeling a sensation like a rodent scratching inside his skull. “In London, I can keep an eye on you. The Hall is too far-”
“Do you-” Lavinia’s teeth snapped shut as she changed her mind.
Do I drink blood? Connor could read her mind, and was relieved she decided it was better not to know.
“As soon as I know what Malachi intends, I’ll come back. It should only be a day or two.” In Connor’s experience, Malachi tended to move fast. He couldn’t imagine the elder vampire staying under the radar for very long, not if he was still in London.
The scratching inside Connor’s head became whispered words, and he smiled. It looked like it would be faster than he imagined.
-Connor, I’m waiting in the morgue- As Malachi’s word appeared inside his head, Connor wondered at the location. Where we first met. It seemed a fitting place for a showdown, somehow.
Getting to his feet, Connor said quietly, “Thank you, Reggie, for listening to me. And you, Lavinia. I’d do anything to turn back the clock. I’ve got to go, but stay here tonight, and stay together. I’ll be back soon.”
As though to impress upon them what they were up against, he left the room at a speed which left them both buffeted by his wake and staring at a door they could not have seen move.
Chapter 28
As Connor raced across London’s dark wet streets to St George’s Circus, he mulled over Malachi’s choice. Like Morse code, his mentor’s voice played the message over and over inside his head, as though he was unsure Connor had received it. Connor grinned. If he had learned one thing during his hours alone, it was how to retreat into his own head, enter the safe room he visualized, and lock others out; it worked with the human voices drifting through the cemetery. Apparently, it locked his own thoughts inside just as effectively. Malachi doesn’t seem to know I’m coming.
Malachi’s thoughts became insistent, banging on the door, but Connor felt safe. Why does he want to go back to our beginning? Everything Malachi did had a reason.
Entering the hospital and breezing through the corridors, Connor heard the soft shoe shuffle of the night nurses checking on patients. The deep breathing of slumber created a calming atmosphere which seeped into Connor. It felt as though nothing bad could happen here, not under the watch of those inspired by the teachings of Florence Nightingale.
Pushing quietly through the door marked ‘morgue’, Connor descended the stone steps and paused. Even his cold skin detected the drop in temperature to well below ‘preservation of the dead’ cold.
Malachi is here. Connor entered and noticed immediately the deeper texture in the shadow at the end of the room. A gleam of twin yellow-tinted jewels instantly focused Connor’s mind. Stepping outside the safe room in his head, he asked the question which burned inside.
Why here, Malachi? Connor laughed harshly. I thought you achieved your aim to destroy me. Have you come to gloat?
Malachi moved into the blade of moonlight cutting through the room to the floor from a street level letterbox shaped window to the floor. Motes of dust pirouetted around him like fireflies as he pushed the flowing ash-gray robe he wore back from his shoulders. Connor recognized it from their first night-time encounter. The fabric hung to the floor, and could shield a face in sand storms or shut out the sunlight, Connor guessed.
It seems you are dressed for a journey? You are leaving, then? Connor resented the sadness he felt.
“I have spent enough time here.” The older vampire’s thin smile revealed yellowed teeth. “I yearn for home.”
It was the first time Connor considered that Malachi had an emotional attachment to a place. “What brought you here, to London? It’s a long way from Egypt.”
Thin bony fingers rubbed over the creased parchment of skin on his forehead. “I travel. There are others like me whose paths I cross along the way. It is a reminder I am not alone. You, for example, will always feel an affinity for London. Even when the city changes into a place you no longer recognize. In the decades to come, you’ll be drawn here. It is the way of things.”
Connor nodded. It made perfect sense. When are you leaving?
-That depends on you-
On me? Connor peered into the impassive features. Why me?
-I have a conscience. You are being hunted by the police. You can’t stay here, but you can’t run. You have to end it, here, first, or they’ll never stop looking- “You don’t want to be looking over your shoulder whenever you come back.”
Malachi’s gaze exuded a zealous gleam Connor had not noticed before. As though he held his breath, feeling tension. As though my answer means something to him.
The bony hand plucked at the necklace hanging around his scrawny neck. The serpent ring clinked against the glass vial. Connor watched the movement, and the glint of the emerald eyes on the gold coiled serpent caressing the skeletal hand.
“What do you suggest I do,” said Connor quietly, his muscles tight with the unease trickling down his spine.
Dropping both hands and shrugging, the old vampire replied, “You have to die. Publicly.”
Connor waited and watched.
A picture emerged from a mist inside his head, of him stood on the gallows in a bleak yard at the Old Bailey. At his shoulder, stood a celebrity of sorts. Ellis. He held the sackcloth hood which would go over Connor’s head. Everyone knew Ellis, the famous executioner of London, who had put to death the most notorious criminals in the city.
Connor felt his neck muscles ache with cramp as he watched the scene Malachi played out for him. He even stopped breathing and experienced a moment of vertigo when the ‘Connor’ he watched through the misty veil of second sight, dropped through the hatch door and swung by the neck.
“You think I should give myself up to the police? Face a trial and the death sentence?”
-Think about it. You are already dead. They cannot kill you again, and once you are buried, I’ll be here to dig you out. Once we are in Egypt, you’ll merely be another face in the crowd-
The more Connor listened, the more it began to make sense. He nodded. He walked towards Malachi, studying the expressions playing across the thin slack features.
Quietly, Connor said, “You haven’t changed your mind, then. You still think we should go to Egypt, together.”
Through rusty dry vocal chords, Malachi said, “No, I haven’t changed my mind. England is too risky for you. Egypt is the better option.”
Connor absently ran his fingers over the metal autopsy tables. “I can see the logic. So, I go to the police station and give myself up. Plead guilty, perhaps? To speed things along?”
Frowning in thought, Connor rearranged the surgical implements he found inside a folded linen cloth on an instrument table.
-Precisely. The police stop looking for you, and you’re free to learn how to survive decades unshackled by your human existence- Malachi drifted closer. His sharp ridged taloned nails tapping out a mesmerizing rhythm on the glass vial necklace again. He leaned in until Connor felt the cool breeze of stale breath. “You’ll be free.”
Jerking his head up and glaring at the skeletal presence at his shoulder, Connor spat, “But you taught me survival depends on staying fit.” He lunged to grab hold of the scrawny neck, but the aged vampire disappeared, materializing across the room. Connor ran full tilt at the cloaked figure, crashing into the wall, just as he expected to. Bracing his boot against the slick tiles, Connor launched himself quickly after the swift moving shadow. His peripheral vision picked up the accelerating movement easier, and like a pin ball ricocheting around the enclosed space, Connor began to guess where his mentor would pause next.
The aged skull hit the wall and cracked porcelain cascaded to the ground when Connor’s hand finally closed around more than fresh air, and aged vertebrae creaked in his grasp.
Clawed hands struck out at Connor’s eyes, and in one swift move, he snapped the old vampire’s wrist, leaving a hand hanging limply. The other, he dragged from his throat, hearing fingernails score across his quartz-hard skin. Pressing his face in close, until the jaundice yellow eyes were out of focus, Connor said, “New vampires are stronger. You taught me that. And this time, I’m smarter than you, too.”
Malachi hissed like a scalded cat. His flailing bony knees caught Connor in the thigh muscles. -You have no idea what I can do to you-
Agony swelled inside Connor’s skull like a swarm of bees stinging over and over until his thoughts dissolved into a soot black cloud. Blinding streaks of white hot pain darted behind his eyes and the wizened face before him became wreathed in a halo of light.
Staggering back, Connor no longer felt the ridged bone of Malachi’s spine in his grasp, and every instinct screamed ‘protect yourself’. Folding his arms across his chest and dipping his chin, he protected the vulnerable cage of life. His blood network, as Malachi always said, was of paramount importance. Diving to the floor, Connor collided with the autopsy tray, scattering instruments across the ceramic tiles. He rolled under a metal table, feeling the knots of steel beneath him grinding into his flesh.
Closing his eyes, he sampled the air; his skin and sense of hearing on red alert for a shift in pressure. Will a broken wrist, a useless hand, stop him? Connor knew it wouldn’t. The whine of rushing air closed in fast, and Connor braced for impact. His body skidded across the floor and he hit the wall side on, like a freight train. The lumps of steel beneath him screeched across the slick tiled surface, scarring the glaze with gouged lines. The crushing blow would come next. Twisting and reaching behind his shoulder, Connor’s scrabbling fingers grabbed a cranial drill bit and raised it up, level with his face. Bracing the back of his hand on his forehead, he locked every muscle tight and closed his eyes.
The crunch, when it came, as Malachi slammed hard into Connor’s body, made every rib creak. But Connor didn’t notice that. The back of his hand crushed the flesh on his forehead and the blunt metal shaft dug into his palm with the impact. Connor felt the sharp crack vibrate through his own head as the drill bit pierced Malachi’s skull, between those manic gleaming eyes.
The thin scrawny body went slack and, when Connor opened his eyes, there was a crumbling void where Malachi’s face should be. So much for the hangman’s noose. Connor had smelled a rat when the old wizened vampire related the plan. Even a vampire can’t survive a broken neck. Severing the blood network between his head and body would have put Connor in the same place as The Butcher.
Rolling the body away, Connor rose to his feet. His shirt hung in tatters and the gouges in his face seeped pink-colored chalky ooze, but other than that, he had survived. Lifting the bundle of bones from the floor, Connor placed the inert form onto a cadaver drawer bed and shut the door.
Malachi, where are you?
Closing his eyes, Connor opened up his mind, searching for his mentor’s voice. The silence felt heavy, thicker than air. His vision clouded, but the weight on his chest told him this came from somewhere other than his own despair.
He tried to breathe in but couldn’t. Reaching out a hand, his fingers grazed over a rough splintered surface even though, when he looked, Connor’s hand stroked nothing but the polished steel of a cadaver drawer.
As though a zip line of concentration called to him, he left the morgue and headed out of the hospital by the shortest route. He shi
vered as if he felt cold and gathered the sensation as another clue.
Thick weighted atmosphere. Splintered wood. Bone chilling cold. The graveyard?
Connor set off at a run towards the cemetery, but the picture inside his mind melted and lost its sharpness. The graveyard was the wrong choice.
Help me, Malachi. Where are you?
A flash of silver resolved into shimmering bodies swimming around, passing behind Connor’s eyes as if his head was an aquarium. A shoal of fish. Puzzle pieces slotted into place.
The Thames. Connor swung around and headed back through the city and onto the embankment. The slate-gray river boiled lazily before him, the tumbling currents churning in an endless, slow rolling motion. The length of the river bank bore landmark statues and benches. Cleopatra’s needle drew Connor as if it was a real needle of steel and held a magnetic force within.
He arrived at the base of the monument and looked down over the wall at the promenade below. In a smooth movement, he vaulted over the side and landed lightly on the paved concrete path. Walking along close to the edge, he peered into the soot gray depths.
He stopped suddenly and retraced his steps ten yards. A pale circle shimmered a hundred feet below, at least.
Shedding his coat, Connor stepped off the path and plummeted into the water. His dense body took him effortlessly downwards until the moon and gas lights above no longer penetrated. The currents buffeted his body and his hair billowed, becoming a spiked cloud of coal black strands.
The black hanks obscured his vision until he dipped his chin and peered down the wall of wood which lined the river bank far below the water level.
He glimpsed a pale oval with ink-black holes where eyes would be, and realized it was a face. Diving into a faster descent, Connor felt his muscles tighten with mindless fear. He was not breathing, so why would Malachi drown? Why would he be down here at all?
His mentor finally sent words splintered by frozen thoughts: Trapped- not strong- iron-
Death of Connor Sanderson_Prequel to Fire & Ice Series Page 18