“Redmount is fifteen kilometers to the southeast and Hillside is twenty-one kilometers to the northwest.”
Of course none were on the way to any of the others. Redmount was the closest, but it was to the south where the other two we at least on the same northern track. I made up my mind on the spot. “Liz and I will take Hillside and the two of you head over to Redmount. If we don’t see anything there, we all head to Markham.”
“What do we do with Rissa Vic?”
Gregory’s voice was very quiet, almost like he was scared or nervous to talk to me. However, I’d forgotten all about the girl in my anger and that wasn’t cool of me. “Why don’t you guys hang out here until Rissa is okay and then take her with you? Unfortunately, no place is safe for any of us.”
Gregory smiled a bit. “We can do that. She will be safe with us.”
“Victor, sister? Will the two of you be okay on your own?”
“Do not be fooled Jonathan, my dog’s bite is much worse than his bark.”
All I could do is sigh as she grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the garage.
Chapter 26
It was late afternoon, close to evening, and we were back on the road. “This sucks Liz, this really sucks.”
“This is much worse than I ever expected. I can only imagine what Pan has done to earn Roderick’s fealty.”
Fealty? Who even says that? I guess my girl does, that’s who.
Ignoring her old world vocab, “When Rosette and I questioned him at his place, he seemed old and tired. Something’s not sitting right with me about this. I hate to say it, but we are far from the whole truth.”
I let her simmer after I gave my opinion. Trying my best to stay focused; I looked out the window and attempted to enjoy the view of the English countryside. The cloudy grey sky and the cool air made this the exact opposite of the American Southwest where I was most comfortable.
Thinking of home, I wished I’d had called my parents before I left. I talked to them usually twice a week and was really looking forward to my first trip back to Full Moon since taking over in Phoenix. Hopefully if we survived this madness, Liz and I would be able to go.
“Hillside will be just ahead. Let us be prepared for anything.”
Before we’d left, I put both the tantos in the car. I wasn’t really sure Roscoe would be much help. “How strong is Rod? I mean he’s gotta be a real bruiser huh?”
“Roderick is more an intellectual than a physical fighter. That being said, he will be a very dangerous opponent. Do not take him lightly.”
Out of habit more than anything, I checked the chamber of my gun. “Anything to be wary of?”
“If pushed to fight, he will use a rapier, the fencing sword.” She explained before I ever had a chance to ask. “He is a master swordsman, quick and cunning unlike Baron Forte who used brute strength.”
Let me tell you, that’s another thing that irks me about these old vampires. The blasted geriatrics always used a sword, like they are some sort of damn knight of the round table or something. What I wouldn’t give for a good old fashioned shootout.
Liz pulled the car up to an old rusty gate. The house loomed in the background like a clichéd haunted house in a B style horror movie. Parking and exiting, we grabbed our tantos and started our investigation.
“This place looks empty. If he’d be here, I’d imagine the gate would be open.” I also sniffed the air. No smells of emission or Rosette for that matter. All I caught was the nature that surrounded us.
“I know you are keen in your observations, but Roderick is the most cunning of our kind. We are not going to underestimate him and leave.”
She brought the tanto down on the padlock keeping the gates together and it snapped easy-peasy. Pushing the gate open, we began our long walk towards the building.
“I’m getting a nasty déjà-vu feeling here.”
While tracking down Warren Tucker, he sent us to an abandoned hospital. There we were ambushed by one of his big green monsters. That night was almost the end of yours truly.
“We would be fools to think that this was not another trap. Use your senses and stay on guard.”
I think that was the worst part, nothing was out of the ordinary, not even the slightest of scents or sounds. If something besides Rod was waiting for us, I just hoped I’d catch on to it first.
We walked towards the front door; it was slightly off its hinge. “Try to open it slowly or just kick it down?”
Liz inspected it and gave it a hard kick. The rotten wood gave way and the door crumbled to the ground in a heap. “Let us not keep anyone waiting.”
We entered, still nothing weird hitting me. Actually, “Shouldn’t a house that’s been abandoned be full of dust and have a funk to it?”
In sharp contrast to Rod’s current home, this one didn’t have a spot of dust. The furniture was covered and the electricity was shut off, but it was more of a staged illusion. Someone wanted us to think the place was abandoned.
“Shall we go upstairs or downstairs first?”
I looked at the staircase in front of me. The further up the stairs went, the less the staged appearance was there. On the landing, there was a thin layer of dust with no footprints. “I think our answers lie downstairs.”
Slowly, we made our way to what I guessed was the basement door. I imagined Liz had been here before; she sure seemed to know the lay of the land. When she opened the door, a wooden staircase led down. I pulled out my cell phone and opened the flashlight app.
The light made it a bit easier to navigate. There weren’t too many stairs, but just enough that you could feel the temperature drop. At the bottom of the stairs, an old wine cellar stretched out in front of us.
“Hot damn, look at all this wine! I bet some of this stuff has a great vintage to it.”
I went to grab a bottle and look at it, but Liz grabbed my hand. “These bottles are not filled with wine. These are different types of blood Victor.”
I lowered my hand. “I probably don’t want to know, do I?”
“Let us just say that I was not pleased when I discovered this little secret. I should have warned you we may stumble upon these cellars.”
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just see what else we can find.”
We continued looking around the cellar, but with the limited light, it was getting rough. It was slow work and not turning up anything either.
“Liz, there’s nothing down here except Rod’s private stock. I guess my hunch was wrong.”
“Maybe we should check the upstairs before we go?”
“Yeah, no stone unturned and all that.” Walking back over to the stairs, “Hey Liz, I gotta question. How did you find out Rod killed the kid vampire?”
“Jonathan saw him do it. My brother is ashamed of his actions, but Roderick threatened to kill him if he did not help. He went and retrieved the girl to take the fall.”
I felt all the blood in my body going to my face. “That’s pretty cowardly of him. I expected better.”
“As did I, but nothing compared to Gregory. I have a feeling after this is over, there will be some bridges that are never fixed.”
Shit. “Will they be okay together, especially with Rissa in tow?”
“Do not fear, Gregory is an elder vampire first and a love struck teenager second. Besides his presence will ensure Jonathan does not succumb to fear again.”
We exited the basement and shut the door. “If you say so. Good lord, I’d wish you’d tell me these things sooner.”
“I did not tell you because you needed to make logical decisions.”
“Yes Victor,” the voice brought the hairs on my arms to attention, “logic is what is needed now.”
Both of us stopped dead in our tracks. I could get hit in the head tomorrow and that was one face I’d never forget. “I see the rumors of your demise have been greatly exaggerated Warren.”
The old man walked through the remains of the front door. His skin was a bit paler and he was
now dressed a bit less America Southwest and more college professor. “Imagine my surprise when I found myself in this state. To be sure, the irony is not lost on me.”
Liz grabbed the tanto she had strapped to her back and pointed it at him. “I did not have the pleasure myself of ending your life, but it seems fate has smiled upon me.”
“I know we have been adversaries for a long time Miss Swansea, but today I come in peace.”
He took another step towards us, but it was my turn to show off the weaponry. With Roscoe pointed in the direction of his head, “You gotta see it from our side. You tried to kill us a bunch of times!”
“I am outnumbered two to one. If I deceive you in any way, it will be very easy to end my life.”
After a brief moment, both of us lowered our weapons. “Alright Tucker, I’ll be decent and give you a chance. You screw with us; I’ll put a silver bullet in your head.”
“Good, for we do not have much time. Let us find a place to sit and Victor; do you have a way to get in touch with Michael Browne?”
Chapter 27
We were sitting in what maybe was the parlor. My eyes were boring directly into Tucker’s, trying to figure out what the old man was up to. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a book. “This is what I’ve been working on. Pan and his master needed the text translated.”
The book piqued my senses, and not in the good way. “Where’d you get that?”
He opened to the first page. “I have no proof, but I think this book came from the Vatican. A lot of the text is research on the Crusades, written by someone important, possibly a Pope.”
This was one thing I could trust Warren Tucker for. He knew his information in that area. “So what does it have to do with anything?”
“This is what the witch is needed for. There is an enchantment blocking a great treasure that Pan’s master wants.”
Liz looked at the book, “The Scythe of Death…”
Tucker laughing wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. “That is just a false legend, sent to send people on wild goose chases. No, the real treasure is hidden inside the text describing the legend.”
That’s what the Lost Boy had said, that it was just a legend. “So you can confirm it’s not real?”
Excitement flooded his voice. “Yes, if one reads the text close enough; you can piece together the riddle the author put together. Whoever wrote this legend did so to protect the real treasure with misdirection.”
“Warren,” Liz’s voice had the warning tone to it, “we do not have much time. Please get to the point and quickly. What is the treasure?”
“Not what, but who! The treasure is actually a crypt, magically sealed so that the prisoner inside would never be disturbed.”
I felt a chill sweep through the room. “Who’s in the crypt?”
He turned to Liz, “What do you know of the creation of your kind?”
“Most of the books of vampire history were destroyed when Cesar Alexis and my parents were burned to the ground. What I can remember is something along the lines of an act of betrayal caused a powerful witch to curse the bloodline we all come from.”
He nodded, “Very good. You’re so close to the truth, and allow me to tell you what I’ve discovered.” He opened the book to a page about a third of the way through. “I’ll keep it short, but there were two brothers, Cain and Abel. After Cain killed his brother, he roamed the land for ages, an outcast wherever he went. Towards the end of his life, he discovered an enclave of witches.”
“Cain and Abel, like Adam and Eve’s kids?”
“The very same. When Cain was taken in by the witches, he told them of the crime he committed and asked for a chance at redemption before he passed away. The witches granted his request and made him young again.”
This was fascinating. In the back of my head I was still very worried about Rosette, but for the first time since we got to London, it felt like we were making progress.
Warren continued, “The witches told him he had seven days to complete his task and he would die in peace. Cain agreed and left, looking for his chance. Unfortunately, after six days, he still had not found the chance he was looking for.”
Liz was just as entranced by the story as I was. I hated Tucker for his dramatic pauses. Well I hated him for a number of reasons, but his enjoyment of storytelling was particularly annoying at this moment.
“On the morning of the seventh day, Cain went back to the witches and asked for an extension. The witches declined. Denied his chance, the anger in his heart took over and Cain attacked the witches, killing all of them, or so he’d thought.”
“So one survived?” I couldn’t help it; I just blurted the question out.
“Yes, one did survive and as Cain was leaving, she confronted him. She cursed him and his bloodline to live an eternity, to never know peace. As Cain murdered her, the thirst for blood hit him for the first time. As he drank from the witch, the first vampire was born.”
I grabbed the arm of the chair, tightly. “Let me get this straight, Cain is the first vampire and all vampires descend from him?”
“He is the father of the vampires; his curse is now our curse. It can be spread too, such as how I came to be, along with many others.”
Both of us looked at Liz, who looked sick to her stomach. “Hey beautiful, you doing okay?”
She gave me a small smile and turned her attention back to Warren. “Tell me the truth, is Cain the treasure?”
“Yes Miss Swansea he is. What the Hammer of Jehovah wants with him, I do not know. When I put the story together, I knew I had to seek out the two of you.”
“That’s another thing Tucker, why are you selling out Pan?”
His eyes turned sad. “It took being turned into a monster to realize what a real monster is. Pan is horrible and I can only imagine his master is much worse. Cain was captured and imprisoned for a reason; releasing him would no doubt end quite a few lives.”
“How was he finally caught and stored away?”
Closing the book, “It does not say unfortunately. There are many pages missing, which tells me someone else does not want the world to know too much about Cain.”
If Rod was in on this plan, we needed to double our efforts to find Rosette. She was the key to opening the crypt. “Liz, can you call john and Gregory and tell them what we know. Maybe they got lucky and caught Rod and have Rosette too.”
She took her phone out and left the room. Tucker looked awkward sitting across from me. “You asked me if I could get a hold of Michael Browne. Why do you want to talk to him?”
“I know this might sound false coming from me, but he was a friend for a long time. I owe him an apology for all that I have done. I know he shouldered a lot because of the messes I made in Elephant Butte at the end.”
I kept staring at him, a cross between confusion and disdain. “You killed a lot of people with your actions Tucker. You killed two people that were important to me. I want to take my pistol out right now and shoot you in the head.”
My words didn’t come as a shock. “I quite expected you and Miss Swansea to end my new life before I got a chance to explain what I was doing. Why did you give me a chance?”
I couldn’t answer the question because I didn’t know. When I heard his voice when he came into the house, I really wanted to shoot him, no questions asked. “My friend Billy, he didn’t like guns, even though he was a deputy. He always tried to solve problems with words and by being a decent guy.”
His head dropped, “Was he one of the friends that died in my misguided quest to cleanse the world?”
I fought back my tears, “Yeah, he was. He died the night you did, from one of your green monsters. He might not be here physically, but today his spirit was here. You asked why you didn’t die today, it’s because Billy saved your life.”
I took my phone out of my pocket and scrolled down to Michael’s contact information. “Billy was a good friend of Michael’s. I won’t make you ask for my forgiveness,
because I don’t have any to give. But, for what it’s worth, it’d be a real good thing to ask for his.”
I pressed dial, handed Tucker the phone, and left the room before I did something I regretted.
Chapter 28
Gregory, John, and Rissa had no luck at Redmount. We were back in the car, with Tucker, heading towards Markham. Liz wanted to kill him, but after speaking with Michael, he convinced the two of us to give Tucker a chance at redemption. I felt like those witches that gave Cain a chance and paid the price for it.
We were a lot closer to Markham than the others and there was no talking Liz into waiting. She’d even taken the wheel and was currently driving about twenty kilometers over the speed limit. The betrayal of her oldest friend was finally showing through. I’d wondered how long she’d keep the tough appearance going.
Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to question our newest prisoner. “Tucker, I’m not going to lie. Me and Liz don’t have the best track record with those in our custody, so if you could, answer all my questions truthfully – just in case.”
“I will do my best Victor. What do you want to know?”
“I saw a picture of you and Rod, the head vampire guy in this part of the world, together. What was the meeting about?”
He swallowed hard. “Pan gave me a location to go to and talk to someone he knew would be there. When I discovered the identity of the man I was supposed to meet, I thought it was my death. As for the meeting, this Roderick seemed uninterested in me, saying London was home to a great many scholarly vampires.”
“So no talk of unleashing old vampires or world domination?”
“No, I assure you. I only recently put the pieces together about Cain. I do not even know if Pan knows. If he does, he is acting stupid about it.”
But if the Lost Boy knew, “Could it be you’re being played Tucker?”
“I don’t see what they would gain from that.” He leaned in. “You two are the first ones I have told about my discovery, unless the Hammer knows and informed Pan.”
The Wrath of Pan (The Inglewood Chronicles Book 2) Page 12