by Di Toft
“Don’t tell JC we’ve gone until it’s too late for them to follow,” said Fish. “With any luck, we can do this thing before nightfall.”
Scarlet and Natalie watched in silence as the two black horses and their riders were swallowed up by the dense fog and the swirling, deadly snow.
By the time Nat and Fish reached the plain, the sky had lightened, but because of the fog, visibility hadn’t improved at all. It crawled over them like a freezing, damp cloak, thick enough to absorb any noise from the hooves of the horses and the creak of their leather saddles. Nat felt his internal GPS take over and help him guide Rudi back to the Black Chateau once again. It was he who had persuaded Fish not to share her plan with the adults until they had gone; his mum would have tried to stop him or, worse still, want to come with them, and frankly he had a hard job imagining his mum as a vampire slayer. If only they had been able to investigate the Black Chateau sooner. Saffi Besson had been alive when the vampire had swooped out of the sky and snatched her away from Nat, but he couldn’t be sure how far he had gone back into the past. He had to admit to himself that it might be too late to save her from her fate. For all he knew, she could be a vampire by now.
The closer they got to the Black Chateau, the more uncomfortable they felt, their unease transferring to the horses as both Rudi and Nikita spooked and shied away from the slightest snowdrift. Fish gamely urged Nikita into a gallop when the snow thinned slightly, but promptly fell off. As for Nat, it was difficult to enjoy the ride when there was the head vampire waiting to be slain at the other end, and just when things seemed to be as glum and as gloomy as they could possibly get, the weather worsened again. The fog was joined by a fierce blizzard and the whiteout made visibility almost nil, but Nat sensed something moving up ahead in the swirling snow and fog. Then he saw something. Something big and black.
“Now what?” he muttered, more to himself than to Fish. He motioned to her to stop.
There appeared to be a number of black shapes moving ahead, just visible in the whiteout. Fish couldn’t see a thing; she peered into the whiteness, but couldn’t see as keenly as Nat, her human eyes being too weak.
“What is it?” she asked nervously. “What do you see?”
“I’m not sure,” said Nat, his face a mask. “There’s something coming toward us.”
Fish’s heart was in her mouth. Vampires!
On the open plain, there was nowhere to hide. Fish slithered onto the ground, pulling the lethal wooden stakes from her saddle bag. She was just about to pass them to Nat when she saw his expression change to one of relief. Then he smiled at her.
“It’s OK,” he said. “I can see their hearts. Whatever they are, they’re alive.”
The black shapes came steadily nearer, and Fish could see plumes of condensed air. She exclaimed in delight as out of the snow emerged a small family of the most beautiful animals she had ever seen. Time stood still for a few seconds as the exquisite black palominos filed past Nat and Fish, seemingly unbothered as they tossed their blueywhite manes and disappeared back into the fog. The sight of the wild horses cheered them like a good omen, making them feel how good it was to be alive.
Roughly half an hour later, as the outline of the Black Chateau rose out of the fog like a brooding monster, their spirits sank again. But this time the fog proved to be their friend, as they found a shelter to hide their horses from prying eyes while they carried out the next part of the plan on foot. Drawing closer to the chateau, Nat made his mind empty of everything except the memory of what he thought he had seen when he and Woody had been in the horrible garden with the creepy statues and farty smells. He found the archway again, and under the cover of the fog they slipped into the gardens, Fish exclaiming every now and then under her breath every time she was taken unawares by one of the ugly statues.
“I just want to check something out,” whispered Nat, and Fish followed him through the archway. Someone, Saffi—Nat was sure it had been Saffi, or someone else unfortunate enough to be kept locked in the tower—had thrown something from the window. It seemed a good place to start. Judging the distance from the tower to where the thing would have fallen, Nat and Fish dug in the deep snow in search of it. It was Fish who found it. With a muffled cry of triumph, Nat watched as she held up something that glowed unnaturally bright in the miserable fog. Nat grinned. It was a delicate gold crucifix.
“Is she still there?” whispered Fish. “Is she still in the tower?”
“SAFFI! ARE YOU THERE?” yelled Nat. “IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, SHOUT!”
Fish almost jumped out of her designer ski suit. “Shut up, you idiot,” she hissed. “What on earth are you trying to do?”
Nat looked hurt. “I was seeing if she was still there like you asked,” he said.
“I know,” said Fish, “but I didn’t expect you to shout like a foghorn! I thought you could sense these things.”
“Sorry,” said Nat. “Sometimes it’s quicker to just do stuff normally.”
But Fish was annoyed. “If anyone heard that, we’ve had it.”
“But it’s daylight now,” protested Nat. “The vampires’ll be asleep.”
Fish shook her head in exasperation. “Yes, but if the rest of the hive is here, they’ve been well hidden. Remember, Teebo Bon searched here when the people started to disappear. It’s possible the vampires have had some help from their familiars: servant drones who can walk in the daylight.”
Nat closed his eyes and tried to see Saffi in his mind. He could see her face as he had seen it when he had flipped, but he couldn’t see her in the tower. But she was still alive, of that he was certain. They had come to a formal walkway, each side lined by skeletal black trees. At the top of the walkway loomed a high bridge, made of what appeared to be black marble. The bridge led over the vast expanse of frozen water to a tiny island on which was another, much smaller building, also in black marble. It had probably been beautiful once upon a time, but now it just looked desolate and creepy.
“Do you see what I see?” asked Alex Fish, her eyes shining in the gloom.
“That’s where they put the dead people, right?” asked Nat with a shudder.
“Yep,” said Fish, “it’s not so fashionable nowadays, but in the olden times they used to put the whole family in one of these, obviously when they were dead. The posher the building the better.”
Nat winced. Personally he thought it was a horrible idea, but followed Fish reluctantly as she sprinted across the dangerous-looking bridge to check out the weird building.
Above the entrance, etched into the black marble, were the words Vitam Eternam.
“Wonder what that means,” whispered Nat.
“It’s Latin,” whispered back Fish grimly. “I’ve seen it before.”
“Where?”
“On a vampire’s coffin at NightShift HQ,” Fish answered. “It means immortal.”
Nat didn’t trust himself to say anything. It was real, then; it was here.
“You sure you’re up for this?” asked Fish, concerned. Nat looked scared to death.
No, I’m not up for this, he thought to himself. I’m not up for it at all. I want Woody to be here; I only feel safe when I’m with him. He took a deep breath. “Seems like as good a place to start as any,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant.
Fish gave him a knowing look, then busily emptied her rucksack, passing some stakes to Nat. She pushed the rest back so that they stuck out of her pack like arrows.
There was a chunky padlock, which looked brand-new, hanging by a chain on the sturdy door. It didn’t put Fish off for a second. Reaching inside one of her many pockets, she produced a tiny leather pouch and retrieved a small, decorative silver key.
Nat watched with interest as she pushed the key into the padlock and turned it. The padlock sprang open and dropped onto the snow.
“Cool,” whistled Nat, impressed.
“It’s Egyptian,” whispered Fish. “It’s thousands of years old. The story goes it can open any door in an
y time or place.”
“How come you have it?” asked Nat.
“It’s part of a collection of Egyptian artifacts that used to belong to Cleopatra,” said Fish.
“’Course it is,” said Nat, bemused. “I should have known.”
Fish grinned. “If you come back to NightShift HQ after all this is over, I’ll gladly show you around the vaults. Man oh man, you wouldn’t believe what’s down there.”
“What time you got?” asked Nat, glancing down at his wristwatch.
“I have 0900 hours,” said Fish smartly. “We’ve got bags of time until sunset.”
Nat hesitated as Fish disappeared inside the yawning mouth of the mausoleum, gingerly checking it out with her flashlight. It was crowded with coffins. Some were stacked on top of each other, and Nat groaned inwardly. This was going to take longer than he thought. He tripped over the nearest coffin and banged his knee.
“Careful,” warned Fish. “Don’t forget, all these dead dudes could be innocent—free of vampirism. We have to treat each one with respect.”
“Or they all might be undead,” said Nat, rubbing his knee. “It’s going to take ages—there’s got to be at least thirty coffins in here.”
“Then let’s get on with it,” said Fish primly.
At the first coffin they paused to read the name from the plaque on the top.
LE COMTE LOUIS
DE MORDAUNT
1808–1881
“Le Comte!” gasped Nat. “That’s like royalty, isn’t it? Or nobility? I think it means count.”
Fish nodded. “Better go careful, in case we get sued or something by the blue bloods.”
Great. More blood, Nat thought. He swallowed and lifted the lid while Alex Fish stood poised with a stake. Nat had offered her Saffi’s cross, but she had grinned and lifted her own humungous one out of the top of her ski jacket. It was the flashiest piece of bling Nat had ever seen, and at least five times the size of the real gold cross he had found.
“Only ten quid at the flea market,” said Fish with a grin.
With the coffin open, Fish shone her light inside. Nat had been holding his breath in case it smelled of rotting flesh like it does on the TV, but actually it smelled kind of musty—at best like old library books, at worst like old people’s hallways when they keep cats. Despite the obvious fact that it was quite unusual to be peering into strangers’ coffins armed with stakes, it really wasn’t bad at all. The sight of the long-dead aristocrat was sad rather than horrible, his once-fine clothes stained and rotten, his bones long dead and forgotten.
“I think we can rule out ol’ Louis as the head vampire,” said Fish, relaxing slightly. “That’s one down, another twenty-nine to go.”
They repeated the process another nine times before they found what they were looking for.
The coffin stood slightly alone from the others on a plinth under a tiny window, which was more like a slit in the marble than a proper window. Fish dusted the plaque off with her sleeve and read:
COMTESSE SEVERINE
DE MORDAUNT
1815–1840
“She was young,” remarked Fish. “Only about twenty-five when she died. How sad.”
But Nat was concentrating on opening the coffin lid. It was stuck. He bent down to get a better purchase on the lid and it flew open suddenly, as though on a spring, making them both jump. They both peered inside, Fish flashing her torch, expecting to see the now familiar sight of old rags and bones. The coffin was shocking in its emptiness.
“Jackpot,” said Fish softly.
“The queen of the hive,” agreed Nat, “but where on earth is she?”
Even as he spoke, Nat sensed movement behind him. He spun around just in time to see the door of the crypt slam shut. They were trapped!
CHAPTER 29
NAT MEETS THE QUEEN
“That so wasn’t supposed to happen,” said Fish, sounding on the verge of tears. Nat couldn’t blame her. He knew how she felt. From the sliver of light shining dully through the tiny slit of the window, Nat could see Alex Fish’s stricken face. As soon as the door had slammed shut, sealing them inside the mausoleum, Nat had run to it and pushed against it, hoping his Wolven strength would have budged it. But it was useless. Whoever had seen them enter the crypt had only been biding their time before locking them in. They heard the chunky padlock being snapped firmly into place again on the other side of the door, and Nat’s awful claustrophobia was back with him, made worse by the fact that they were sharing the small space with a bunch of skeletons.
“D’you reckon it was her?” asked Nat. “The comtesse?”
Fish shook her head miserably. “It’s still light; she’ll be sleeping. Like I said, she’ll have others to do her dirty work.”
Nat thought on this for a while. “Her familiars?”
“Imagine a hive of bees,” replied Fish. “Every queen needs helpers. It’s no different with a vampire hive—some are workers, some are drones, and they’re beholden to the queen for their entire lives, or until she dies.”
“They’ll come for us, then,” said Nat, his eyes burning, “when the sun goes down.”
“Or not,” said Fish moodily. “Maybe they’ll just leave us to suffocate in here with the dead.”
“There you go again,” said Nat, trying to cheer her up, “always looking on the bright side.”
But there appeared to be no way to escape their marble prison. Fish scrabbled around on the dusty floor trying to find a trapdoor while Nat systematically checked the roof and the walls. The crypt was apparently seamless; nothing could get in or out.
“We’re toast,” said Fish. “I think you’re right—when it’s dark, she’ll come for us.”
“Yeah,” said Nat thoughtfully, “and we’ll be waiting.”
In the dark mausoleum, time passed slowly among the dead. Nat paced up and down, trying to forget about his claustrophobia, refusing to accept they were locked in and there was nothing they could do. As hour after hour crept by, he could only hope that his dad and JC were on their way and would make it in time to rescue them before the vampire, wherever she was, awoke, but he only said that to give Alex Fish hope. He knew that the blizzard would have seriously stymied any rescue attempt by the Twilighters. It would have been madness for anyone to try to find the Black Chateau without the benefit of a map or Wolven GPS. He felt hot and strange and angry. Dozens of emotions sped through his brain as the reality of their deadly situation sunk in. Fish was angry, too, blaming herself and wondering how NightShift’s best agent could have left the padlock in the door.
“Try the two-way thing again,” she said for the umpteenth time. “Try Woody.”
Nat knew that if Woody could pick up on the two-way, or sense they were in trouble, he would be there in no time. To Nat, Woody’s failure to come back after his run with the Howlers was more worrying than the predicament in which he currently found himself. He refused to believe that Woody was choosing not to respond to the two-way thing. He needed to find out what had happened, but first there was the small matter of getting out of the crypt and hunting down the vampire queen. No pressure.
1700 hours. The sliver of light from the tiny window had almost disappeared. Somewhere behind the blizzard the elusive sun was setting. Nat’s keen ears caught a tiny sound from outside.
“Something’s coming,” he whispered to Fish. “Get ready.”
Alex Fish stood in position while Nat waited, heart pumping inhumanly fast, blood rushing noisily in his ears. They had nothing but the two crucifixes, a batch of stakes, and their faith in each other to fight whatever was on the other side of the crypt door. Alexandra Fish was a NightShift agent who believed in herself, despite the blip with the padlock, and Nat Carver was a mongrel by his own admission—neither boy nor Wolven. He decided to go Wolven.
Crouched in front of the door, he thought he could feel his body changing. The hairs rose on the back of his neck like hackles, and his muscles felt pumped and tingly, as though just by tensi
ng them he could make them twice their size. Although Fish was hindered by her human eyesight and couldn’t see Nat properly, she could see his eyes flashing again with a fevered topaz light, and suddenly he wasn’t Nat anymore. Oh, he still looked like Nat Carver; he hadn’t morphed into a wolf or anything. Except that he sort of wasn’t—he was bigger, somehow, and his face was set in a hard, un-Nat-like expression, brutal, almost. Fish shivered all the way to her toes.
When the old door groaned open, Nat felt himself leap upward as if he had no control over his own body. The small vestibule of the crypt was filled with the most bloody of bloodcurdling growls, which chilled Nat to the marrow of his bones. Then, shockingly, he realized that the growling and snarling was coming from him—bloodcurdling noises came again from way down deep inside his chest—he was growling and snarling like a wolf. He used the open door as a board from which to spring out, and prepared to fight whoever was waiting for them.
There was nothing there.
Nat gulped in great lungfuls of snowy air as he looked around him. Fish followed him, glad to be out of the crypt and breathing fresh air again, even if it was freezing. She stared at Nat. His eyes still blazed, but he looked as though he was regaining some control.
“What’s happening?” she shouted against the roar of the wind. “Why have they let us go?”
“Don’t know,” yelled back Nat. Through the swirling snow, he scanned the bridge and then the gardens, satisfied there was no one there.
“What now?” he asked Fish.
“We split up,” said the agent firmly. “Don’t tell me you’re scared—I’ve just seen you wolf out. You scared me, and I don’t scare easily.”
Nat grinned. “You know this is bad, don’t you? Whoever let us out is playing with us.”