“I dreamt I was standing on a platform or stage of some sort. I was naked, and all around me—”
“Were men and women wearing the costumes and dress of a score of different ages.”
Sarah stared at him. “You too?”
“And I dreamt that a demon tried to break through the circle of bodies, but they drove it back.”
Sarah nodded quickly. She drove the heels of her hands into her eyes, rubbing furiously. “They were the previous Hallowed Keepers,” she said decisively.
“How do you know?”
“I know,” she said firmly. Suddenly she pointed to a road sign. “Madoc twenty miles.” She smiled. “Nearly there.”
They continued to hold hands in silence for the rest of the ride.
THE OLD man in the last seat didn’t look too much out of place among the shabbily dressed youths. His army surplus coat, trousers, and ragged sneakers were identical to many of theirs, though his was in the decrepit state to which the bohemians could only aspire. Among the smells of unwashed flesh and beer and the sweeter stink of hash, his stale odor went unnoticed.
Ambrose had watched the gathering of the Demonkind in the Astral above, drawn by the interlocking spirals of power that emanated from the two journeying Hallows.
He had also watched the bright point of blue-black light approach, falling from the rarefied heights of the upper Astral, wrapped around the ghostly image of a black-haired woman. He longed to use a tiny percentage of his immense power to blast the creature but knew that he had to remain shielded. But he would find her; all he had to do was follow the stench of evil, and he would destroy her.
And now he was returning to Madoc.
It would end where it had begun, not seventy years ago, not seven hundred years ago, but nearly two thousand years ago in a tiny village at the edge of the mountains. Ambrose was finally going home.
86
Madoc was a sleepy community of twenty-five hundred people, nestled on the border of England and Wales.
The ancient village was featured in the Domesday Book and had appeared in some of the Arthurian legends. The local museum contained artifacts from the distant Neolithic age, and the meager coal seams of the nearby mountains had yielded fossils from both the Jurassic and Triassic periods. When the mines started closing in the seventies and eighties, many of the young men had left Madoc, seeking work in Cardiff, Liverpool, Manchester, and London. Having sampled the city life, few ever returned to the quiet town.
In the early eighties, Madoc had followed the examples set by some of the French villages in northern Brittany, the crofts in the Scottish Highlands, and some of the smaller towns in the west of Ireland and made a deliberate effort to revitalize their Celtic heritage. A modest interpretative center re-creating Bronze Age village life had proven to be surprisingly successful. Reproductions of Celtic crafts—leatherwork, wood carving, jewelry making—had established the foundations of a series of increasingly successful cottage industries, and now Madoc Celtic silversmithing and leatherwork were exported all over the world.
And when a local schoolteacher and celebrated academic had suggested the all-embracing Celtic-themed festival to the village council, it had been unanimously accepted. It seemed only natural that it should take place on All Hallows’ Eve, one of the sacred days in the old Celtic calendar: Samhain, commonly known as Halloween.
The schoolteacher had been instrumental in creating the Celtic revival that had saved the village from the fate of so many others in rural Wales, and the council listened to his suggestions. Not only did he want to create a music festival that would rival Glastonbury, he wanted to create an event. This would be more than a music festival: There would be music, arts, theatrical installations, performances, storytelling, food, and theater. Out of his own pocket, he funded an expensive interactive website that had spread word of the event across the world, and there were inevitable comparisons to Nevada’s Burning Man and Vermont’s Firefly. The local organizers had been surprised by the response. Within weeks of the initial announcement, the event was a sellout, and now there were estimates that up to one hundred and fifty thousand people would attend.
HAND IN hand, Sarah and Owen wandered through the tiny village of Madoc. Although it was not yet eight in the morning, the small village was crowded, most of the shops were already open, and the main street, which had been designed for horse-drawn carriages and never widened, was jammed solid with cars, minibuses, and coaches.
“I’m guessing this was not the best weekend to come here,” Owen shouted to be heard over the noise.
Sarah grinned. “The locals look a bit shell-shocked,” she said.
The young couple walked slowly along the crowded streets, enjoying their anonymity, the early morning sun warm on their faces. But the moist country air was already spoiled with the odors of burning food and myriad perfumes. From the far end of town, high-pitched static howled, setting the crows wheeling into the air.
“What do we do now?” Sarah asked. She had managed barely two hours of uncomfortable and troubled sleep on the coach, and she was exhausted, her eyelids gritty. She had a sour taste in her mouth, and there was a constant buzzing in her ears. More than once she had twisted around, eyes wide, thinking she’d heard the sound of a hunting horn.
“We eat,” Owen said firmly, feeling his own stomach rumble. “I could do with some breakfast.” He stopped outside a cake shop and stared at the bread and confectionery. A short, stout, elderly red-faced woman stood in the doorway, arms folded across her massive bosom. She smiled at the young couple, and Owen nodded in return. “Excuse me?”
“Yes, dear?” The woman’s accent was light and lyrical, a little girl’s voice in an old woman’s body.
“We’re here for the festival,” Owen said, pitching his voice low, drawing the woman closer to him. It was a trick he often used with older women when he flirted with them. “We are looking for someplace to stay. Have you any recommendations?”
The red-faced woman bellowed a hearty laugh. “If you haven’t booked, then it’s unlikely you’ll find anyplace. The hotel is full and the guest houses are all booked out. I’ve heard the tent village is fully booked, too. You might find something in Dunton,” she added.
“Oh. Well, thanks anyway,” Owen said. “I guess we’ll settle for buying some of your bread. It smells fantastic.”
“It tastes even better than it smells,” the woman said simply.
Owen followed her into the shop, blinking in the gloom. He breathed deeply, savoring the odors of warm bread. “Smells like my aunt’s kitchen.”
“Your aunt likes to bake?”
Owen nodded, abruptly unable to speak, his throat closing, tears welling in his eyes.
“It’s the flour dust,” the woman said kindly.
“Our aunt Judith loved to bake,” Sarah said quickly. “In fact…” She stopped and looked around. “Would this shop have been here years ago, during the war?”
“My grandfather opened it in 1918 when he came back from the war. The first war,” she added. “Why do you ask?”
“Our aunt was evacuated to this village during the war; she used to speak about a wonderful bread shop. I wonder if it was this one?”
“This is the only one in the village,” the old woman said, beaming. “It must have been here. My mother and my aunties ran it then.” She leaned her dimpled forearms across the glass-topped counter, pushing aside the do not lean on glass sign. She shook her head, smiling at the memory. “I played with the evacuees. What was your aunt’s name?”
“Judith Walker,” Sarah said softly.
The baker frowned, looking at Sarah’s hair. “I don’t remember any red-haired girls….”
“My aunt had jet black hair. I get this color from my father’s side of the family. He’s Welsh,” she added.
“Welsh. From where?”
“Cardiff. I’m Sarah. This is my…brother, Owen.”
“Owen—a good Welsh name, of course. I can see the resemblance,�
� the woman added. She shook her head. “Gosh, I remember those wartime days. I shouldn’t say it, of course, but they were amongst the happiest in my life. And Millie Bailey, one of the evacuees, was my best friend.” She turned her head and looked out the door at the crowds streaming past, trapped in her memories. “Poor Millie, she would have loved this. She’s gone now. And your aunt Judith?”
“Gone too. Recently,” Owen said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re here. Visiting the places that were important to her.”
“Memories are important,” the old woman said.
Owen and Sarah waited in silence.
“How long would you be staying?” the woman asked suddenly.
“A night. Two at the most,” Sarah said quickly.
“Do either of you smoke?”
“No, ma’am,” Owen said quickly.
“I have a room, a single room,” she suggested. “It’s my son Gerald’s room, but he’s in London, working in the theater. You’re welcome to use it.”
“We’re most grateful,” Owen said immediately. “We’ll pay, of course….”
“No, you won’t,” the woman said simply. “Now you wanted some bread.”
87
We were expecting ten, maybe twenty thousand people…so far we’ve got about one hundred thousand, with maybe another fifty thousand expected,” Sergeant Hamilton said quietly, his Welsh accent lending the words a musical cadence. “It’s completely out of control.”
He looked from Victoria Heath to Tony Fowler. “I’ve got officers on loan from constabularies all across Wales, but we’re hoping the festival will more or less police itself. There are over fifteen hundred volunteers and they’re using the Glastonbury festival as their model.” The big man smiled. “I think we’re going to be fine. Everyone is here for a good time.”
“Not everyone, I’m afraid. I have every reason to believe that Sarah Miller, whom we want to interview in connection with half a dozen murders and the kidnapping of a young American, is here in this village.”
Sergeant Hamilton nodded toward the crowd streaming past the window of the small police station. “All my officers are assigned to duty. I’ve no one to spare….”
“I can see that,” Tony said. He reached over and pulled the phone across the desk. “Let me see if I can get some more men.”
Victoria Heath turned to look through the diamond-paned windows of the police station into the crowded street below. “If she’s here, she could be anywhere.”
“Let’s wait till everyone settles down for the night,” Hamilton said. “We’ll check the hotel and the guest houses, and then I can have the men sweep through the tent village down in the Mere. If she’s there, we’ll find her.”
Tony Fowler slammed down the phone. “Let’s just hope we find her before she kills again.”
“That’d certainly ruin the festival,” Hamilton muttered.
88
Didn’t Brigid say something about a cave?”
Owen was perched on the window ledge, looking down into the busy street below. Sarah sat on the bed, surrounded by Judith’s notes as she leafed through her diary. “Yeah, here it is. Listen to this: ‘Ambrose brought us to his cave today. It is at the end of the village, over the bridge and then left along a narrow, almost invisible path. The cave is in the middle of a thick copse, set back into a low mound, almost invisible unless you were looking for it. Ambrose had fitted its stone walls with shelves made from the branches of trees….’”
“They’re fairly specific instructions. We should be able to find that,” Owen said slowly.
Sarah jumped off the bed and joined Owen by the window, wrapping her arms around his waist. Silently, they looked at the crowds thronging the narrow streets.
“I want to be like them,” Sarah said very softly.
“Like them?”
“I want to be ordinary,” she said.
“I hear you,” he whispered.
He peered at the shop across the road. There was something about the name that rang a faint bell. Bailey’s Haberdashery. “Hey, pass me my aunt’s address book.” Checking the back of the book, he ran his finger down the list of names. “Mildred Bailey,” he said triumphantly. “With an address here in Madoc,” he added. “That has to be the same Millie.”
He thumbed through the diary and scrapbook. “It says here that Bailey died ten years ago, some accident. She was survived by her nephew.” Turning to Sarah, he smiled. “Well, we’ve got two leads now, Ambrose’s cave and Mildred Bailey’s last known address.”
Closing the book with a snap, he said, “We should talk to her nephew, maybe he can help us.”
89
There was something moving behind them in the woods.
Sarah could feel the creature’s eyes on her, actually feel the newly shorn hairs on the back of her neck rising. Seeing Owen glance over his shoulder more than once, she knew that he felt it, too. She reached into the bag and pulled out the Broken Sword, held it flat against her leg. “We’re being tracked,” she muttered, falling into step beside him. “I know.”
“Any idea who or what it is?”
“Too many ideas. And I hope and pray it’s none of them.”
Sarah resisted the temptation to turn around again. “Maybe we’ve missed the turn,” she suggested. They had been wandering through the woods for hours and hadn’t found anything resembling a cave.
Owen squinted through the trees. “I don’t think so. This is the only path to the left of the bridge, and the track is nearly invisible,” he reminded her. “I can make out a mound ahead. Maybe that’s the mound my aunt mentions in her diary.”
“We’re turning in circles,” Sarah said in frustration. “It’s not here.”
“Have faith.”
A pigeon whirred through the trees, bringing two magpies into the air, wings snapping. They both jumped.
“This has to be the mound,” Owen said. He left the track to cut across through the trees toward the grassy mound, which was covered with hawthorn and holly.
Sarah followed more cautiously, ducking beneath a low-lying branch, using the opportunity to glance quickly behind her. She caught a glimpse of an indistinct shape slipping through the trees.
They had walked past the cave mouth before Owen realized that the shadows were darker behind a particular curtain of leaves and twisted vines. Sarah, who was walking behind him, holding the sword openly now, was horrified when he abruptly disappeared.
“Owen!” Her voice was a hoarse, rasping whisper. A hand appeared through the matted leaves, drawing her in. Ducking her head, she pushed through the curtain of leaves and stepped into a large natural cave. With the leaves covering the opening, the light was green tinged, shifting and dappling the walls with an underwater effect.
The cave was almost exactly as Judith Walker had described. Semicircular, with rough wooden shelving set into the walls and an ornately carved box bed tucked away in one corner. The cave obviously hadn’t been used in decades. A solid layer of dust, liberally speckled and scattered with animal tracks and mouse droppings, covered the floor, and thick gauzy cobwebs spread across most of the empty shelves. One shelf at the very back of the cave was piled high with cans of meat, mostly with labels of companies that had gone out of business decades ago. The flaking yellowed remains of a candle were still stuck to a grease-spattered rock alongside the bed.
“I feel as if I’ve been here before,” Owen whispered. “Everything is so familiar.”
Sarah nodded; she was thinking exactly the same thing.
Owen spun around to look at her. “You realize what this means, of course.”
She stared at him blankly.
“If the cave is real, and the Hallows are real, then we have to accept that everything else that my aunt says in her diary is also real. Ambrose was real.”
Leaves rustled, branches creaked, and a shape filled the doorway. “Ambrose is real.”
Sarah whirled, bringing up the sword, the broken blade sparkling and crackli
ng with green fire.
“I am Ambrose.”
The wild-haired, one-eyed old man who stepped into the cave was shorter than Owen and dressed in ragged army surplus clothing and oversize sneakers. He carried a tattered knapsack. “It’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. Owen Walker, I presume, and you…you must be Sarah. Sarah Miller. Enchanté. Yes,” he continued, noting their shock. “I know your names. That…and a lot more besides.” He dipped his head in a ridiculous bow, then abruptly reached out with his left hand toward the sword.
He touched the artifact with his index finger. Tendrils of emerald light sparked and snapped, curling and twisting around his hand and snaking up his arm. “And you, I know your name as well. Still powerful, still strong, eh, Dyrnwyn?” he murmured. “Still hungry.”
“Hungry?” Sarah asked.
“Dyrnwyn is always ravenous. The last time I stood in this place,” the old man continued conversationally, moving around the cave, gnarled fingers touching the shelves, hands caressing the smooth stones, “I was presenting thirteen boys and girls with the Hallows of Britain. I thought I had finally seen the end of them.”
“You presented the Hallows,” Owen began, “but that was…”
“A long time ago? It was. But here I am, back again. Good as new. Better than ever. Older than I look, but not as old as I feel.” He turned his back to them, brushing twigs and rat droppings from a smooth depression in a large boulder before sitting down. “You have two of the Hallows with you, and the other eleven are perilously close.”
He looked up to see Sarah and Owen still standing openmouthed before him and laughed gently. “‘Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom,’” he intoned. “From the Book of Kings,” he added. “You should make yourselves comfortable. There is so much to tell you, and so little time in which to do it.”
The Thirteen Hallows Page 26