The Thirteen Hallows

by Michael Scott; Colette Freedman

  Sarah found the canvas shopping bag in the kitchen on the table, where Judith had left it. She lifted it, the weight of the metal making it heavier than she expected. Peeling back the newspaper, she discovered an unremarkable rusted chunk of metal. Was this what Judith had been killed for? Some papers and a piece of rusted metal? It didn’t make any sense. Why had she allowed herself to be brutally tortured to death if the item her killers had wanted was just above her head? And for what—a worthless piece of metal?

  The crunch of glass made her look up.

  There was a face at the back door, the snarling mask of a skinhead—the same skinhead who had attacked Judith on Tuesday—wraparound sunglasses lending his face an insectile appearance. There were three others behind him.

  Sarah snatched the bag and ran. Behind her, the thugs kicked the kitchen door off its hinges.

  SERGEANT VICTORIA Heath tapped her colleague on the arm. “This one here. Number—” She was pointing toward the house when the front door was flung open with enough force to shatter the glass panes and the wild, disheveled figure of a young woman raced out.

  “Miller!” Heath and Fowler said simultaneously.

  The young woman was looking over her shoulder as she wrenched open the gate and darted out onto the street, slamming against the police car, which Fowler had swung onto the pavement.

  For a single instant, Tony Fowler and Victoria Heath stared at the terrified face of Sarah Miller…before she turned and raced off down the road.

  Fowler slammed the car into reverse, clipping the car behind him, and took off after Miller, tires screaming and smoking on the road. Victoria snatched up the radio and then stopped, jerking her head back sharply. There was a perfect bloody handprint on the window in front of her.

  “Leave her, Tony,” she whispered, “we have to go back.”

  IT TOOK her a long time before she realized that she wasn’t being followed. She had raced through rows of streets, past women gossiping on doorsteps, through children playing on street corners, down alleys and lanes, across gardens, into side streets, running until her breath was acid in her lungs and her stomach was cramped into a tight ball. Finally, she had pushed through rusted iron gates and slumped on the same warped and scarred wooden bench Judith Walker had used hours earlier. Holding her head in her hands, Sarah attempted to make sense of the last few hours.

  Judith Walker was dead, brutally killed for…for what?

  For the contents of the bag.

  She reached into the bag and touched the chunk of iron, and suddenly she remembered the phone call to the office, the coolly insistent voice.

  She gave you something rather important that belongs to me.

  The mysterious caller’s representatives had killed her family looking for the artifact, and Judith had died protecting it. The sword, Judith had called it. Sarah peered into the bag. It didn’t look like a sword, it looked like something you’d find in the trash. But her family had died for this metal. Judith too.

  Sarah ran her fingers along the metal and they came away rust red, bloodred. What made this so special?

  And the police…What had they been doing there? Looking for her or Judith?

  And why had she run?

  Sarah knew she should have stayed and spoken to the police, but the skinhead and the others had been waiting and she hadn’t been thinking clearly. She should go back and talk to them before they got the wrong impression. Sarah bent her head, her forehead touching the cold metal in the bag on her lap. She should not have run….

  “SO THAT’S why she ran,” Tony Fowler said tightly, pinching his nose, breathing only through his mouth. He was standing on the stairs, looking down into the cellar, trying not to inhale the noxious odors. The puddle of yellow light shed by the naked bulb highlighted the mutilated body. Victoria Heath stood behind him, a scented handkerchief pressed tightly to her mouth, eyes swimming.

  Tony and Victoria backed up the stairs. He closed the cellar door on the terrible scene, took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled sharply, trying to drive out the pervasive stench of death. “She must have come straight here from the hospital.”

  “Why?” his partner mumbled, swallowing hard.

  The detective shrugged. “Who knows? We’ll ask her when we catch her. But we were right the first time. Her reaction in the hospital was obviously nothing more than an act. An Oscar-winning performance.”

  “I believed it,” Victoria whispered. “She fooled me.”

  “She fooled me, too. And now she’s on a spree. First her family, and now this poor woman. God knows who’s next.”

  “I honestly didn’t think she’d done it,” Victoria mused. “She just didn’t seem the type.”

  “Trust me—they never do.”

  21

  They were coppers,” Skinner justified to Elliot as he leaned into the car, feeling the cool rush of the air-conditioning against his sweaty skin. “She ran out the front door, smack into their car. There was nothing we could do.”

  “How do you know?” the small man asked coldly. They were several blocks from the old woman’s house, and Elliot could smell the metallic odor of blood radiating from the skinhead’s flesh and clothes and realized that he would have to get his car detailed again. Elliot’s sleek BMW hardly blended into the bleak, desolate wasteland of brick and rubble that was being converted into a car park. Behind him, Elliot could see Skinner’s three accomplices sitting on the ground, passing a joint back and forth. They were laughing in high-pitched excited squeals. “How do you know they were police?” he repeated.

  “They had that look,” Skinner said defensively. “I know police.”

  “Describe them.”

  “Man and a woman. Big craggy-faced bloke and a blond dyke.”

  Elliot sighed. The detectives from the hospital; they hadn’t wasted any time. “Was Ms. Miller carrying anything when she ran?”

  “She had the old lady’s bag, which was on the table in the kitch…” Skinner stopped, realizing he’d said too much.

  Elliot pulled off his Ray-Bans and dropped them on the seat beside him. He hit the power switch on the car window and the glass slid up abruptly, trapping Skinner’s head in the opening, the edge of the glass biting deep into the pale flesh just below his protruding Adam’s apple. Robert Elliot put his two hands on the wheel and stared straight head, and when he spoke, his voice was remarkably composed. “You spent the entire afternoon questioning the woman, and got nothing from her. And the bag was on the table in plain sight the whole time?”

  “It was a shopping bag…nothing more,” Skinner croaked. “For Christ’s sake, I can’t breathe.”

  “Then why did Ms. Miller take it?” Elliot glanced sidelong at the sweating skinhead. “The old woman was dead when you left her, wasn’t she?”

  “Yeah.” Skinner attempted to swallow.

  “You’re positive?” Elliot insisted. “There was no way she could have told the young woman anything?”

  “No one could have survived what we did to her. We were about to finish when we heard movement upstairs, so we scampered out the back. I had one of the lads check the front of the house, but there was no car. I was going back in to investigate when I saw the bird who kicked me on Tuesday. She was standing at the kitchen table, going through the shopping bag.”

  “Ms. Miller.”

  “Miller. Yeah. When she saw us, she grabbed the bag and ran. We were following her when we saw the police. They took off after her, then suddenly stopped and reversed back up the street. So we got out.”

  Elliot sighed. His employer was going to be very upset. He pushed the ignition button, starting up the car.

  “Hey!” Skinner squealed.

  Elliot carefully engaged the clutch and let off the hand brake. The car rolled forward, and Skinner’s shouts rose in intensity as he scrambled to keep up. “No, Mr. Elliot, please…Mr. Elliot, please!” Skinner’s thin fingers tried desperately to grip the slippery glass.

  “What would happen if I drove off
now?” Elliot mused.

  “Mr. Elliot, please. I’m sorry. I’m—”

  “I’m not sure which would happen first. Either your neck would snap or you would suffocate,” Elliot said calmly. There was a slight sheen of sweat on his high forehead. He licked suddenly dry lips with a small, pointed tongue. “I suppose if I drove fast enough, and took a corner sharply, it might tear your head clear off your shoulders. It’d be quick, but it would make a ferocious mess of the car,” he added.

  “I’ll find her. I’ll make her tell us what was in the bag—”

  “If I drove slowly, you could probably cling to the window, but your legs would drag on the ground.” Elliot allowed the car to drift forward and gunned the engine. “I suppose you would be able to run for a while, a little while, at least…but what would happen when you got tired? How long do you think it would take to strip the flesh from your bones?”

  “Mr. Elliot, please…” Skinner was crying now, knowing the older man was perfectly capable of doing just that.

  “I taught you about pain, Skinner, but I haven’t taught you everything.” He suddenly released the window, and Skinner fell back, hacking, both hands pressed to his throat.

  “There are some lessons still left to be learned. Don’t make me teach them to you. Find Sarah Miller.”

  22

  Elliot believes the girl may have the sword,” Ahriman murmured.

  Vyvienne sat up on the bed, candlelight shimmering on her naked flesh, running molten on her raven hair. “Elliot is a fool,” she hissed. “And like all fools, he employs fools—weak, drug-addled, ignorant fools. A man is only as strong as the tools he uses…. And you are a fool for trusting him,” she added with unaccustomed boldness.

  Ahriman caught her jaw, squeezing it, fingers digging into the soft flesh beneath her eye. “You forget yourself,” he whispered.

  The woman tried to form words, but the pressure on her jaw was intense.

  “More important, you forget who I am. What I am.”

  She started to choke and he released her, pushing her away from him. “Elliot suits our needs.”

  “For the moment,” the woman said hoarsely, teeth sharp and white against dark, plump lips. “And when you’re done with him—remember, you promised him to me.”

  “He’s yours,” Ahriman agreed.

  The woman rose from the bed and crossed to the bay window, pushing back the heavy velvet curtains and allowing the waning sunlight to wash the gloom from the wood-paneled bedroom. Against the crimson light, her naked flesh was as waxen as the thick candles that dotted the room, her dark mane draping over her sinewy back. She turned, arms folded beneath her heavy breasts, pushing them up. “What are we going to do about the girl?”

  Ahriman threw back the covers and swung his legs from the bed. “Find her.”

  “And then?” she asked. “The girl is not part of the pattern. Not part of the Family.”

  “I know that. But who knows what patterns are whirling and shifting now? We’ve lost Judith Walker without recovering the sword; this is our first setback. But we know—we think—the girl has it. So all is not lost.”

  The woman padded across the room and pressed herself against Ahriman, his chill flesh raising goose bumps on her skin. “Be careful. We know nothing about the girl. We don’t know her family, her lineage. We don’t know how much the old woman told her.”

  “Nothing, probably,” Ahriman said quickly. “Judith Walker was a manipulator, a user. Ultimately, all the Hallowed Keepers become users; they are unable to resist the lure of the tiny fragment of power they control, the ability to make men and women do their bidding. Judith used the girl, and by doing so brought destruction on the young woman’s family. I wonder if the girl realized that?” he asked softly. “Probably.” He nodded slowly. “Maybe she went back to the woman for answers….”

  “And old Walker must have told the girl something,” Vyvienne said quickly, her breath warming the man’s naked chest. “Why else would Miller have taken the bag?”

  “You’re right—as always.” The big man wrapped his arms around the woman, pulling her close, drawing the heat from her body, the tingle of energy arousing him. “We will know soon,” he promised. “We’ll have her.”

  “Do not be so certain. You have unleashed extraordinary forces by simply bringing the Hallows we already possess into such close proximity. I’ve sensed the ripples through the Astral, distortions in the fabric of the Otherworld. Only the Gods know what you have disturbed.”

  The man known as Ahriman laughed. “She is a child, caught in a complex situation she could never comprehend. She is of absolutely no danger to us. Elliot’s people will find her soon.” His smile turned vicious. “And, if you desire, you can play with her then.”

  23

  In the time after the Last Battle, there was only darkness.

  Those who had survived—and there were few enough—cowered in the darkness.

  And hungered.

  The flesh of the humankind was close enough. Close enough to smell, to taste on the air, but not close enough to touch, not close enough to feast upon.

  They had been cast away, cast out, cast down, and sealed into their prison by the Halga, by the boy who was not a boy, who was humankind and more than humankind.

  Those who survived did not age, and though they had no concept of time, they were aware that a great number of seasons—tens of hundreds and more besides—had passed by.

  But now there was light.

  A speck in the darkness.

  A tiny bloodred pulse, a heartbeat.

  As one, they moved toward the light.

  For where there was light, there was food.

  And they hungered.

  24

  Sarah was shocked by what she saw.

  Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the dark pond water, she did not recognize the wild-eyed woman who stared back at her.

  When she had left for work a day earlier, she had carefully applied her MAC foundation, mascara, and nude lip gloss. The makeup was gone now, washed away with tears and sweat. Now, the dots of her unconcealed freckles were connected with dried blood. Her eyes were sunk deep in her head, black smudges etched beneath them, the whole effect startling against the pallor of her skin. Her hair, which had been pulled back into a tight ponytail, now hung loose and wild about her face, sticking out at all angles, and when she ran her hand through it, flakes of dried blood—Judith’s blood—spiraled away.

  Sarah knew that she should go to the police. When she’d seen the skinhead, seen the evil in his eyes, she knew that he would have no compunction about killing her, so she’d panicked and run for her life. She knew without a shadow of doubt that this was the man who had killed Judith and butchered her family.

  She needed to get to the police, to talk to the blond sergeant and the gruff inspector. Yet there was something she had to do first. She needed to keep her promise to Judith, to fulfill a dying woman’s last wish.

  Seated once again on the park bench, Sarah lifted the bag onto her lap and began to systematically sort through it. She laid out the items on the bench beside her. She pushed aside the newspaper-wrapped iron sword before examining the rest of the contents: a cardboard folder stuffed with sheets of printed paper, a padded manila envelope filled with newspaper clippings, and a bundle of letters tied in a faded purple ribbon. Somewhere in this mess she hoped she’d find Owen’s address. Sarah turned over the letters; each bore the return address of Beatrice Clay. The stamps dated as far back as the fifties, and the last letter had been sent only a few months earlier. Judith’s wallet was at the bottom of the bag. It contained twenty-two pounds in notes and change and her British Library reading card.

  Sarah was getting so cold. Although the last few days had been unseasonably hot, the autumn nights quickly grew chill. Now, as the sun dipped, the early evening air turned crisp, making her wish she had something warmer to wear. She needed to get this to Owen so that she could…so that she could what? What was
she going to do? Where was she going to go?

  She felt the dark stirrings of panic and the scream beginning to bubble at the back of her throat. She had nowhere to go and no one to go to. She was…she was…

  Sarah forced herself to concentrate on the bag. What was Owen’s address? What was his last name? She couldn’t find anything with an address on it. The old woman had been in great pain; maybe she’d only imagined the address was in the bag. Sarah shook her head. No. Judith had been lucid, terrifyingly so. She knew exactly what she was saying. And Sarah couldn’t even begin to imagine the pain she must have been going through as she’d given her the message.

  She began to return the items to the bag, quickly rifling through the bundle of letters in case one was addressed to someone called Owen. The typed pages in the folder seemed to be notes for a novel. Judith had been a writer, so perhaps these were research notes. The padded envelope…She turned it over. It was addressed to Owen Walker, with an address at a flat in Scarsdale Villas, just off Earls Court Road.

  SKINNER DROVE in sullen silence, glad of the mirrored sunglasses that concealed his red eyes, aware that the other three in the van were watching him closely. The red line where the window had cut into his throat was still visible on his flesh. They had all witnessed his humiliation, and he knew that was what Elliot intended. The short, unassuming-looking man enjoyed causing pain: the ultimate passion, he called it. Skinner’s knuckles tightened on the steering wheel of the battered Volkswagen van. He didn’t blame Elliot; Mr. Elliot was untouchable, and Skinner wasn’t afraid to admit that he was terrified of him. Skinner blamed Sarah Miller. She was at the root of his humiliation. And she was going to pay. Elliot wanted Miller alive, but he wasn’t too fussy about her condition.